Monthly Archives: January 2010

Tor.com has a couple of stories written by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes, two chaps well known and respected for their short fiction. The catch? They each wrote exactly half of each story. Scholes started one, Lake the other and, in front of a crowd at a bookstore, and switched half-way through. The stories turned out to be just as unusual as you might expect.

Don’t do drugs, kiddies, unless you really need to and/or they are recommended by a licensed therabot. And either way, don’t have sex under the influence. Unless, of course, you’re dealing with complicated grief.

A little explanation behind the stories, and the gorgeous art that comes alongside them:

What’s with all the whacky attributions this week? Well, once upon a time, Jay Lake and Ken Scholes sat down together in San Francisco’s Borderlands Books with their computers and a crowd of spectators, including a naked cat or two. Jay began to write a story. Ken began to write a story. And then, halfway though, they traded. Shannon Page was on the scene, and she brings you the details of that epic encounter.

Tor.com is tickled to bring you the results of Jay and Ken’s collaboration, and furthermore, two collaborations by artists Stephan Martiniere and Greg Manchess. Each artist turned over his sketches to the other, and, doing Jay and Ken one better, they traded back for a final pass. You read more about the art mash-up here.

What do you get when you have two of the most prominent short fiction genre writers working together? Well… I’m still not sure! Entertainment, however, is a given.

Every once in a while, I like to give a little shout out to some of the new blogs that I’ve discovered. These are ones that, for one reason or another, I find myself coming back to again and again and I think you might do the same. It’s all about spreading the love and giving you folk a peek at some places that cover content that A Dribble of Ink doesn’t (much as I try!)

The List

Walker of Worlds – Edited by Mark Chitty, Walker of Worlds is one of my first stops for anything Science Fiction related. He’s beginning to dip his toe into Fantasy, which is a nice little addition, but it’s the Science Fiction coverage that keeps me coming back for more. Chitty’s been around for a while, but 2009 was the year that he really solidified himself in the blogosphere with nearly 300 posts.

The Speculative Scotsman Edited by N.R. Alexander, The Speculative Scotsman is the newst blog on my list, only opening its doors at the very moment that we entered this decade (seriously, his first post was published 12:00am 01-01-10), but the quality and quantity of the content he’s already posted is impressive.

What draws me to The Speculative Scotsman is as much Alexander’s voice as his enthusiasm for the genre. If he keeps up this rate of posting quality content, I think Alexander’s blog will be one to watch in 2010.

Plus, if you read all the posts with a thick Scottish accent, The Speculative Scotsman becomes even more entertaining!

Post-weird Thoughts – I first caught wind of Fabio Fernandes, editor over at Post-weird Thoughts, through his involvement with Fantasy Book Critic and I followed him over to his own personal blog. Like Larry Nolen at OF Blog of the Fallen, Fernandes steps outside the genre standards and helps introduce me to authors and stories I might otherwise be ignorant of. Post-weird Thoughts gives an eloquent worldview of the genre that few other blogs can match.

Sam Sykes – Being an upcoming author, Sam Sykes’ personal blog is different in tone and content than the others listed here, but no less entertaining. Gives a good peak behind the curtain at the life of a writer as he approaches the release of his first novel, Tome of the Undergates. He’s not always for the light of heart, however!

There you go, a (very) non-exhaustive list of a few blogs that I’ve learned to love over the last few months/weeks. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them as much as I do, if you’re not reading them already. Just don’t forget to come back to A Dribble of Ink!

So, what’re some blogs that have really caught your eye in the last few months?

If you’re not a browncoat, this won’t mean much to you. If you are, well, join the rest of as we squeal with excitement. Looks like a collection of short stories set in the Firefly universe will be coming soon from Titan Books:

Joss Whedon’s beloved Firefly/Serenity is long gone, but you can’t stop the signal: Fans can look for more adventures of Capt. Mal Reynolds and the crew of the doughty ship in a series of short stories coming soon from Titan Books.

Writer/producer Jane Espenson—who wrote one episode of the Fox sci-fi series but is a longtime friend and colleague of Whedon’s going back to her days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer—told us that she will be writing one of the stories, centering on the characters of Kaylee and Wash (obviously set in a time period before the events of the movie Serenity).

“I’m writing a short story set in the Firefly universe that someone’s putting together,” Espenson said in an interview on Sunday in Pasadena, Calif., where she was promoting her upcoming Syfy series Caprica. “Titan Books is putting together a collection written by various of the Firefly writers. But [it’s a] very short story, … 2,000 words.

I’m a Firefly whore, so this has me more than a little giddy. Can’t wait to see who they have involved outside of Espenson. Notably, Steven Brust wrote a creative commons licensed Firefly novel, released for free on his web site. Could he be included among the authors?

Today, Wizards of the Coast LLC announced a new six-book deal with New York Times best-selling author R.A. Salvatore. Published by Wizards of the Coast, the first book is scheduled to release in 2011 with a new book anticipated to follow once per year after that.

…

“I’ve always maintained that I would keep writing Drizzt as long as it was fun and as long as people wanted to read it. Now I understand that this journey with Drizzt is more than just ‘fun’ for me,” says Salvatore. “Writing Drizzt is an exercise of constantly reminding myself to find new trails and adventures in my own life; the character remains fresh to me because there’s always a new turn, sometimes painful, often joyous, always alive.”

I know. Shocking, huh? I’ve read a handful of the Drizzt books and enjoyed them well enough. My heart, though, lies with Salvatore’s work outside of the Forgotten Realms world, particularily the early novels in the Demon Wars series. As a fan of those books, it’s frustrating to see Salvatore more or less shackled to the Drizzt series. Sure, he’s putting out two novels a year, one set in the Forgotten Realms universe and one set in the Demon Wars universe, but the quality of those books has gone down in recent years and one has to wonder if Salvatore’s not stretching himself a little thin by trying to work on two series for two different publisher at the same time. Still, Drizzt pays the bills, and the fans are legion.

An evil master of sleep-magic torments a small village in the land of Gujaareh. Cet, a priest of the Dream-Goddess, must overcome both the narcomancer and his own temptations to survive.

Hot on the heels of my last Free Readin’ post, I’ve got another story from author N.K. Jemisin. This time around it’s an hour-long audio recording of a short story of her called Narcomancy, which was first published in Helix magazine. Worth a listen and a good introduction to her work if you’re interested in her upcoming debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (or even if you’re not).